by G. F. Miller
As we walk toward the school, Carmen says, “No offense, but I liked your hair better the way it was before.”
Gwen says, “Same.”
“Okay, thanks, guys. I’ll take that under advisement.” From over Gwen’s shoulder, I see Noah pull up in his mom’s white minivan, and I jump at the excuse to get away from my teammates. “Oh, Noah’s here. See you guys later.”
I jog to his van and am inside by the time the engine goes silent.
“Hi there.” He sounds somewhere between surprised and delighted. “Missed me?”
“Listen, we’ve got a problem.”
“I’m great. Good morning to you, too.”
I lean over the console, like I’m telling him a secret, even though there’s no one else in here. “This is serious. There’s a rumor going around that we’re cooling off. Scarlett’s about to investigate like she’s going for a Pulitzer. We can’t peter out—not if you’re going to get Holly to ditch her football-star homecoming-king boyfriend. Which she needs to do, because her HEA is a disaster. She was supposed to put her art on him, not date him. She needs to be rescued by you, so we have to go down in a blaze of glory.”
“Rescued. Wow.” He pretends to flex his biceps.
“This is serious!”
He makes a face so serious that he’s obviously not serious at all. “What do you suggest?”
“We need to be seen together more.”
“You mean like I suggested on Saturday?”
“No more ditching each other at lunch or between classes.”
“Okay. You are hearing yourself, right?”
I am. And I’m trying not to lose my nerve. “We need to look like we’re a couple.”
He leans to center, way into my personal space. “Remind me again. What would help with that?”
I feel like he’s teasing me. But I’m finding it extremely difficult to concentrate—as always—when he’s this close. I sway involuntarily toward him another inch. “We… ah… just need to…”
Noah closes the gap between us very, very slowly—like I’m a creature that startles easily. But I can’t seem to cut and run at the moment. I close my eyes and feel his breath like a warm ocean breeze across my lips.
“LEVEL UP, PLAYA ONE!” The Mouth pounds on the hood of the car. The atmosphere inside the car is instantly drained of its magic.
Without pulling back, Noah says, “Can you wait right here while I, just real quick, murder that guy?”
A dude in an EAT. TROMBONE. SLEEP. REPEAT. T-shirt presses his phone to the windshield and snaps a picture. Noah grits his teeth. “And that guy.”
I sit back, partially devastated, but partially relieved. I mean, what happens after the kiss? Awkward truths. Broken hearts. Sad Ever Afters. I really, really need to keep my lips to myself. I decide to play the whole thing off like it was part of the grand plan. “It’s good PR. Just what we needed.”
Noah laugh-sigh-moans. “PR.”
“Yeah. We need to maximize our social media presence. Start some favorable rumors. That sort of thing.”
Noah doesn’t say anything. He looks like he’s trying to remember pi to a hundred places or something.
I say, “Time to go in, I guess.”
“Wait.” Noah stops me with a hand on my arm. He swallows. “You were about to say something. We just need to…?”
“Oh. Um… We just need to do a better job of… pretending… we are… really into each other.”
“Are you really just pretending?” His voice is soft, but the question is like a bludger.
“Of course,” I lie, trying not to panic. Does he know? Am I being that obvious? “It’s what I do. I’m practically a professional pretender.”
“I noticed.” Noah drops his hand with a sigh and opens his door. “I just wish…” He hesitates, and my heart throbs. “I wish you weren’t.”
29 Dostoyevsky for the Win
Hoping to work on the Vindhya situation, I finagle a hall pass during second-period study hall. Not to brag, but these are the moments when it’s really handy to have nudge powers.
I remember from our wish-granting phase that she has AP Chemistry this period, so I stand outside the door of that class and try to peek in without being obvious. There she is, sitting in the back row with an empty seat next to her. The wall she’s built around herself is almost a physical thing.
Show me what you could be.
I grip my oversized hall pass tight as the school momentarily turns into a carnival ride. Then I’m back at the homecoming football game.
Vindhya is rocking a deep-red sari, standing in line with three other girls in formal dresses on the track that rims the JLHS football field. Vice Principal Martinez says, “Vindhya Chandramouli,” into a microphone before placing a silver-and-rhinestone tiara on her silky black hair. The crowd in the bleachers goes wild—cheering, pounding feet, banging cymbals.… Vindhya perches carefully in the back of the VW Bug convertible and waves regally as the car makes a lazy path along the track.
I blink it away and walk nonchalantly toward the bathroom just to make it look like I’ve got somewhere to be. What am I missing in the glimpse? What on earth did she need me for? What went wrong?
I make a U-turn and stop outside the door of AP Chemistry again. I call the glimpse back.
And it’s exactly the same as before.
I compare every person around Vindhya to my memory of IRL homecoming. After all, that was how I found the problem with Holly’s HEA—the shoes were different from what really happened.
But everyone looks just how I remember them. The STEMers are sitting in a big group behind the pep band, looking deceptively innocent. The homecoming court is the same. The vice principal even has the same outfit on.
This is like the hardest “find the differences” picture in the history of everything.
I pause the scene and study Vindhya. Her sari, her hair, her shoes… they’re all exactly the way I remember them. But there is something a little different. Her eyes are just her eyes—deep brown with lashes so thick that they make the rest of us itch to stick on falsies.
She’s not wearing eyeliner.
* * *
Noah and I make an appearance at lunch. I know we need to do something impressive to dispel the rumors that we’re cooling off. So I bust out a tube of lipstick called Burning Down the House, coat my lips with it, and say, “Okay, hold still.”
“What are you—” He looks genuinely worried.
“Sshh.” Careful not to pucker, I press my lips to his cheek. It’s a little bit scratchy. But also soft. Warm.
My heart thuds, and I linger a moment longer than strictly necessary before pulling away to check my work. A perfect red lip print just below his cheekbone.
Noah’s eyes are closed and his lips are parted. If this were real, I’d kiss him right there at the corner of his mouth. It’s physically painful to resist.
To distract myself, I say, “Vindhya wasn’t supposed to wear eyeliner at homecoming.” I stamp another lip print a little above and behind the first one. “What do you”—another one, on his jaw—“think that means?”
He stammers, “Uh… I don’t… I don’t know.”
I press one last kiss on his now feverishly hot cheekbone. I like that I can make him flustered. His heart may belong to Holly, but there are a few blood vessels in his cheeks that dilate just for me. It’s like I have a little piece of him for myself.
He turns to me, looking dazed. I bite my lip, mid smile.
Oh, my godmothers. Is this how Morgan le Fay sucked in her victims too? I mentally smack myself to stick to business.
I snap a picture of him and post it.
It’s all over the feeds by the time I take my seat in lit class. Holly even comments on Scarlett’s repost of it: Can hardly believe that’s the same kid I used to have frosting fights with! They grow up so fast.
I definitely detect some wistfulness there. Just like we planned.
It sucks.
“O
kay, phones dark and out of sight.” The lit teacher calls the class to order. “Get out your Dostoyevsky. Today we’re talking about self-loathing in Crime and Punishment.”
It’s like she hit me over the head with a big-ass light bulb.
Self-loathing. The Vindhya puzzle clicks into place. The eyeliner. The makeover. The memory of Vindhya at Angelic Hair and Nails saying something like “Can you just make me a different person?”
I almost jump out of my seat. The teacher sees me come to attention and says, “Did you have something to add, Charity?”
“Can I use the restroom?”
“You should have—”
I give her a nudge.
“Sure. Take your time.”
Sixty-three seconds later I skid to a stop in the math-and-science hall. Panting, I knock on the door of Vindhya’s calculus class. The teacher opens the door, giving me a view of the whole room—including Noah. His eyebrows go up. The teacher says, “Yes?”
“I need Vindhya, please. It’s an emergency.” I don’t even bother nudging him. It’s a well-known fact that teachers adore honors kids, always assume they have pure motives, and let them do pretty much whatever they want. This plays out in my favor now, as the teacher calls out Vindhya without asking any questions.
She doesn’t say a word as she steps out of the classroom. The door closes softly behind her, and she stands in front of me with her arms crossed and a defensive look in her eyes.
“Here’s the thing.” I lick my Burning Down the House–stained lips. “You never needed eyeliner. Or a haircut. Or ‘popular’ friends. Or a fairy godmother.”
She gives no hint that she can even hear me.
“You were already everything you needed. You could have won without me—just ask Noah. It’s simple percentages. The only thing keeping you from being homecoming queen was that you couldn’t see yourself very well. Trust me, I get that. I should have told you how powerful you are. I should have kept telling you until you believed it.”
She still doesn’t move, but a single tear makes a slow trail down her cheek. She looks past me and whispers, “Great speech. And thank you. But it doesn’t matter. No one I thought was my friend likes me anymore.”
“They would if you’d just—”
She shakes her head. “No. It would take a miracle.”
For the first time all week I feel hope expanding in my chest. Because miracles—especially the bringing-people-together kind—happen to be my specialty. Seems like maybe Vindhya needs a fairy godmother after all.
30 Hope Drops a Truth Bomb
I feel like you’re doing it again.” Noah changes lanes. He uses his turn signal and everything.
“Define ‘it.’ ” We’re on our way to school, and I’m feeling good today. Strong. Hopeful. My hair is a bright raspberry to match my mood.
His eyes shift toward me and then back to the road. “Listen.” He pauses and then, like the words could be dangerous, he approaches them cautiously. “It seems like you’re concocting some elaborate scheme to manip… maneuver people into doing something. But all the data shows that only relationships create transformations. Don’t freak out.”
“I’m not freaking out.”
“Okay, but, generally speaking, any sort of honest conversation ends in you freaking out.”
“That’s because you tend to find pressure points and then poke them.”
“Touché.”
We lapse into silence. After a few minutes I restart the conversation. “This is different. It’s not based on a random glimpse. I did talk to Vindhya—”
“One conversation is not a relationship.”
“And I don’t have a headache.”
“Charity, you can’t turn people into your pet projects—”
“I can’t?! Nice double standard.”
“Excuse me?”
“Ever since I told you about my magic, you’ve been studying me. You treat me like a research project.”
“That’s not true.” He looks appalled.
“Seriously? You’re constantly ‘testing a hypothesis.’ ”
“That’s just what I do.”
“Every time you get a new tidbit of data about me, you get that mad-scientist look in your eye and say, ‘Fascinating.’ ”
“It… it is,” he stammers. “You are. I can’t help—”
“You made a massive spreadsheet about me.”
“You asked for my help. You aren’t allowed to be mad at me for giving it.”
I cross my arms, because even if he’s not wrong, I still feel the way I feel.
He is quiet again, as if turning into the school parking lot requires all his massive brainpower.
But we’re running out of time, and this whole honesty thing has derailed the conversation I was trying to have. I circle back around with “So are you going to help me or not?”
He groans in protest.
“Please?” We pull into a parking spot right in the front. “I’ll forgive you if you help me.”
He turns to me with a look that says cheater, and I take the opportunity to bat my eyelashes. “Pleeeeease?”
“Fine. I’ll help you.” He takes a “serenity now” breath, rolls his window down, and yells, “TREVON!”
A guy walking past stops and turns to see who yelled his name. Noah calls grumpily, “Trevon, get in the van.”
Trevon spreads his arms. “Dude, that’s the creepiest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
Noah huffs, “Please.”
With a shrug, Trevon heads toward us. I ventriloquist whisper, “Who’s that?”
Noah is still seriously unamused. “Robotics Club president. You’re welcome.”
Trevon climbs into the back seat with a warning look. “Just for the record, at least three people saw me get in here.”
Well, so far this meeting is going not great. I turn around with a winning smile and hold out my hand. “Hi, I’m Charity.”
He hesitates a moment, then shakes my hand. “Trevon.”
“You’re president of the Robotics Club, right?”
Trevon crosses his arms and leans back. Shields up. “Why?”
“I heard you guys are having a little trouble with your project for the regional meet.”
“So?”
“So, I think I can help you.”
He goes, “Pfft.”
“Okay. Not me exactly. You need your star coder.”
“If this involves groveling to Vindhya Chandramouli, you can take your ‘help’ and stick it up your—”
“Hey now,” Noah interrupts.
I rip off the Band-Aid. “It’s time to make up with Vindhya.”
“Not gonna happen. She made it pretty clear how cold hell will be when she forgives us for the homecoming stunt.”
“If you just say sorry—”
“No way. She’s been a narcissistic skeeze gremlin ever since she turned high fashion.”
I counter, “That’s kind of harsh. I mean, just for the record, glamour and genius are not mutually exclusive. Why can’t Vindhya be both if she wants? Besides, you humiliated her in front of the entire school.”
Trevon is stalwart. “She deserved it.”
I’m itching to nudge this in Vindhya’s favor, but, you know, long-term decisions, wicked witches… yada, yada. I grit my teeth behind my smile. “You need her to win, so you need to get over it. It’s pretty simple logic. You’re supposed to be the smart kids. You’re acting like total assclowns.”
“And who made you the jury? Screw you.”
“Come on, guys. Keep it civil,” Noah protests.
I take a centering breath and nudge him after all, just to de-escalate things. I feel his defenses drop a little and use the window to offer “I’m trying to help.”
“Why?”
“Because Vindhya’s my friend. And she needs to code. And she misses you guys.” Trevon visibly softens, so I go to phase two. “Isn’t there an academic awards assembly tomorrow afternoon?”
; Noah says, “Yeah.”
Trevon looks like the dots aren’t connecting. “So?”
I hit him with my most disarming fairy godmother smile. “Trevon, have you ever heard of a Grand Gesture?”
* * *
Did I say I needed Noah’s help? He’s actually crucial to every part of my Grand Gesture plan, which goes like this:
Trevon and Noah use their study halls to program a robot.
Noah enlists Carlos and the Mouth—AV Club members with access to the auditorium tech control room—to assist in hijacking the assembly.
Trevon and Noah convince the Robotics Club to participate.
Grand Gesture.
Happy ending.
Which brings us to last period Thursday and the academic awards assembly. As the humiliation happened in front of the whole school, the Grand Gesture has to be equally public. Even though I peel out of my last class and book it to the auditorium tech control room, Noah, Trevon, Carlos, and the Mouth are already waiting for me. Which means they must have been released from their sixth-period classes early. I’m telling you, these honors kids get so many perks.
I give Carlos and the Mouth a nod. “Hey, guys. Thanks for helping us out. Did Noah already explain the plan?”
Carlos grins and gives me the thumbs-up. “It’s cool. We got it. No problem.”
The Mouth says, “Martinez is gonna have our butts in detention for this stunt.” He shrugs. “But, you know, anything for our Most Valuable Playaaaaa!” He holds his fist out toward Noah.
Noah bumps his fist, blushing.
I swallow. “Well, I, uh… owe you one.”
Trevon says, “This is real touching. But are we doing this or what? I got a robot in excessive downtime here.”
Ah yes. The robot. Picture a puppy made out of an Erector Set, with a circuit board strapped to its back, a coiled wire for a tail, wheels instead of feet, and a couple of extra limbs. Okay, so that sounds more like a giant insect, but trust me, it’s a puppy. There’s also an MP3 player clamped on to the top of its head.